In the season of waiting....

 

        There was a time when it all seemed so right. Don't we hold dearly to some shred of those hopes, even now? It is the season.

      Jim, with the drum, gone at 27. John, with the camera, gone at 33. Even still they wait with me, through another season of anticipation and watching and the seemingly eternal passion of yearning. Those days on Muncie's South Ebright and Ft Wayne's Rose Lane, Colson Drive, or the cold drafty year in the old farmhouse in Cumberland and the "new" house on Lawnhaven visit again, Christmas ghosts, like snow around the foggy lamp post. 

     With so many of others we've learned to invite losses and disappointments to our hearth. It's a good thing, to remember, to reflect, better even, sometimes, with tears. I think it all gets framed up somehow in a hall of time. We deck the halls, with joys of the past. We sip melancholy, we wade into time, and smile at old dreams. 

    We get to an age when those missing from our table, or those who are slowly departing somehow fill us with feeling, a muted trumpet, crying. The young fill us with cheer and kindle our aging imaginations.

    Those who celebrate this as a holy season lean into the circular, recurring nature of it all. More than catharsis, it is like the birth we celebrate. This season is a cosmic in-breaking, a moment poignant, which scatters. Past, present, future fuse, and then go again to their own places in the unconditional, the unending, that beyond the names we give it.

    We wait, all of us, for a spark, that moment when everything truly is right. Out of it, we come away, again, with another shred of hope, held dearly. It gets us by. 

    I live on a ridge along the Santa Lucia mountains, a coastal range that nestles our village between the rocky bluffs of the Pacific. There's a lot of space and few people so it's easy to give over to my interest to see what's up with Mother Nature in this time of winter fallow. I went for a drive.

On grazing slopes, new members of herds. Rain season has just begun so green is still to come. Furrows are laid, so plans are underway. The vines await

    The tidal currents keep their solstice approaching rhythm.

    The week before Christmas and it seems even the land is waiting.

This is the western edge of the US. As I look east we face culture shift and political uncertainty. It is a time for vigilance. 

This season heralds a better way. Goodwill, Joy and Peace will benefit all. We wish those for you, all that your heart can hold. 

See you down the trail. 

   

Shalom...Salaam...Peace

         It is sought by almost every culture, but is historically elusive.

       We have to ask what is wrong with humankind? Are we cursed by choice?

       It is the season of light. We seek peace. Here at Light/Breezes our choice is to encourage your strength of well being. May your belief bring the true sense of Shalom, a full wellness, universal flourishing, wholeness and a peaceful being.

        It would be nice to share that peace, Salaam and Shalom with all creation.

        We live in a big reality.

                    

        War is evil, human failure. We find ourselves unable and ill equipped to discern. Innocents suffer. The most courageous path is peace. But sides are chosen, minds are closed, barbarism begets revenge. Our hearts are missing their heart. 

      Cry out, pray, light candles, feel helpless or

      find smiles and share them.

                    

Live and dream as if all life matters.

Coming soon to this space.....

....the annual visit to toyland!

See you down the trail

As Summer Visits.....

         The scene above, summer evening in the park on the square in Paso Robles captures my sense of summer spirit.

        The busking singer songwriter, a young man full of dreams, children at play, families strolling, green foliage, blue sky and a gentle, peaceful scene.

        Summer is still a time of hope, for ripening gardens, an improved game, no matter the sport, leisure with friends, evenings of simple relaxation and reflection. The scene speaks to me of that essence and it is evocative of a simple time, still possible.

        Lana's orchid cactus's have celebrated summer's arrival with an array of giant blooms. They are dazzling.

        So we celebrate the solstice, and the days of summer with a few scenes of the way it is around here, on the California central coast, a place of "endless summer" in so many ways.

        As members of the US Senate ponder their post summer plans it might be good for the Judiciary Committee to rally an investigation of sitting Supreme Court Justices, all of them if they prefer, but certainly Thomas and Alito who may well have proven themselves unfit to serve. As the House January 6 Committee presented a document to the nation and future generations, perhaps it is time to look into the snake pit on the high court. 

The photo above and below were taken by Lana while tending to her garden.

While here she tends, harvesting fava beans.

An evening in another garden, as Jill Knight and Eric continue to create the score of our lives in Cambria.

Sweet Summer....

    I hope that your summer is peaceful, gentle and includes lazy naps.

   See you down the trail.

"...we thought we'd bring peace to the world..."

off-shore Cambria, CA

        It was buried in an Associated Press report from Colleville-Sur-Mer, France, an account of several dozen veterans in their 90's observing D-Day. About 4 paragraphs down it jumped off the page, one of those universal truths we recognize with a flash.

    The speaker is a 98 year old Penobscot Native American from Indian Island Maine who was participating in a sage-burning ceremony near the beach. Charles Shay was a 19 year old US Army Medic at Omaha Beach.

    "In 1944 I landed on these beaches and we thought we'd bring peace to the world. But it's not possible."

    It is not possible! Peace?

    Sage burning is a native ritual of cleansing and release and on this day in honor of fallen comrades. 

    "I have never forgotten them and know their spirits are here."

    The AP reports "He said he is especially sad to see war in Europe again. 

    'Ukraine is sad. I feel sorry for the people there and I don't know why this war had to come, but I think human beings like to, I think they like to fight, I don't know...'"

    98, a survivor of an historically bloody invasion tending to the fallen as a healer, a spiritual man who has seen the ways of the world for almost a century, and he cannot understand human beings. 

    It is no wonder then that I cannot. 

    Peace, the diadem of human faith, the elusive goal of religions and diplomacy, the thing that humankind values above all, even trying to find it in places, things, and states of mind. Peace, a state of no conflict, of no hostility, of no more war. It is not possible.

    Not possible. You can't get peace out violence. 

    Quickly I attempted to deconstruct the truth that Charles Shay spoke 78 years after he was part of massive effort to "bring peace." My mind ran to my father and his generation who fought in that war, to "win the peace." And then to my friends who "did their patriotic duty" in Viet Nam and then to all of the other conflicts, all over the globe. Why is it that we ask so much for a peace that is impossible. 

    It was ever such.

    The only good thing to be said of a war is when it ends. Though, does it ever? It only changes shape and decades. Peace, an idealistic aspiration is shredded by a read of history. 

    We stumble through life grazing for something that will resonate deeply as significant, a clarifying knowledge, an insight. We search, even as we're never sure what it is we're after. Until it smacks us. 

    Peace is impossible, because?

    As Mr. Shay said, "human beings like to, I think they like to fight."

    Despite the wisdom of this special man, and even in these later years of my life, I'm not giving up on peace, either as a diplomatic and geo political quest, and certainly not as a spiritual reality. 

    As a global status it may not be possible, no indeed, but the absence of trying for it is even more disturbing. 

    Some humans choose to live in peace, engaging our better likes. 

    Lana creates beauty. Here is evidence, a corner of our deck, benefiting from her affirmation of life by means of a green thumb.

    Even through the millennia of human history, from clubs and stones to assault weapons, killer drones and nuclear missiles, the force of life resurrects itself, nature shows us the path. For as long as we have told our histories particular humans have lifted our vision to what can be. Like Mr. Shay humans have knelt over the injured and dying and have comforted parents, friends and the grieving. Humans have told us there is a better way. It need not be our destiny "... to like to fight. 

    I think it is that which enables our survival.

    Peace.

    See you down the trail.

    

    

 

LIVING WITH PUTIN, OR NOT!

             Hoping to provide a least a momentary break by sharing images of where I've sought solace while ruminating about Putin and his evil and destructive arc. 

        Longtime readers may recall the December 2013 post "A Bullet for Putin?" It was another of the "tells" that I saw in his emerging philosophy and world view. He has been signaling his messianic intentions to change the world map and elevate himself to that of a czar and hero of the fatherland. 

        So how do we live in a world with Putin? How do we behave, upholding human civility and the sanctity of law, while a thug with no regard for life or territorial integrity invades and attacks, committing war crimes?

            To a straightforward mind it seems wrong not to be more aggressive and to intervene to stop the invasion and brutality. That has been the plea of the Ukrainian people and President Zelensky. However from the safety of not being bombed and invaded, the world's response has been to leverage war without escalating the violence, which could quickly lead to a World War. That is made more frightening by Putin's irrationality and his stance on nuclear weapons.

        The sanctions and diplomacy are important and have already begun to have a cratering impact on Russia. But if you are a Ukrainian it seems to be not enough.

        There are larger issues here. Putin must be stopped and must be made to pay a high price. If not, he will continue with his messianic vision and mad agenda. 

        If the west were to respond militarily, they could stop the invasion where it is and if inclined could seriously damage Russian military infrastructure. Punishing strikes on Russian bases might seem an effective response to such lawless and blatant aggression. But that takes the war to Russia and there would be dire consequences.

            The draconian sanctions are a way to degrade Russian power and perhaps force and incentivize the Russian military to stop Putin. 

        The Russian economy is in free fall. Increasingly Russia is being cut off from the world. The millions of Russian citizens are unwitting victims of Putin's war. He has moved the nation backwards. The war crimes being committed are being catalogued and investigated already. This will reach into the military and the bureaucracy. Sources in the West are communicating with sources in Russia with the objective of giving doubting Russians a path to depose Putin, or to circumvent his war plans.     

            That is the best hope, and it is only that. It may be that Russian citizens will be so hurt by a devastated and isolated "life as normal"  they will find a way, even in the face of arrest and jail for speaking against Putin and his war. There may be a common sense in the military command to reason that Putin is indeed mad, out of touch with the legacy impact of his actions and that he is just wrong. The only way forward for Putin is to pursue his own grandiose vision and the Generals know there are costs, and strategic disadvantages. Finally, most of them do not want to be tried for the war crimes. 

            When the Soviet Union collapsed it was Red Army Generals who made a secret trip to Washington to talk about the disposition of Soviet nuclear warheads on land, on submarines and on airplanes. Two heroic US Senators did what James Baker and George HW Bush did not, that was to meet with the Generals and to begin the process to secure the old Soviet war heads. 

            Republican Dick Lugar and Democrat Sam Nunn put themselves at risk by traveling, negotiating and working with former Soviet commanders to keep the war heads safe, off the black market and secure. It began as an emergency appropriation, became the Nunn-Lugar Act and eventually the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

            Russian military leadership called a halt to the Russo Japanese conflict in 1905. Again in 1917 the Russian military just quit fighting, tried of World War I. US and Russian counterparts have communicated periodically in the last half of the 20th Century and in the 21st. Military leaders understand the risk of modern warfare to the future of life on the planet.

            The first KGB officer to rule was Yuri Andropov in the 1980's. It was during this reign that planning to stage and survive a nuclear exchange was undertaken. Even though Andropov increased military spending, creating hardship in his economy to lavish the Generals, it was the military who began to reach out the west to alert the world to how "hair trigger" the nuclear game had become. The Russian military and the KGB have different world views. 

        I expect as the war crimes and the brutality of the unprovoked war continue there will increasing debate in the west, among NATO and in the US about upping our response, getting more militarily involved. 

        There is truth in the historic comparisons and questions about "what if" Hitler's early invasions and lunatic aspirations were stopped. If Putin is able to succeed in changing the map, or even survive, he will be empowered and emboldened. In my view, there is no place in the modern world for people like Putin, other than in prison or dead and used as an example. 

        

        Putin is a demonstration of why there are alliances, why NATO is important. He is an example of why democracy is essential and why authoritarians are dangerous and should be permitted only in ancient history. 

        A final thought for now. As we watch history made be careful of what you see in public opinion polls. The media ballyhoos them. 

        They are positioned as an entre' into the public mind or a validation or repudiation of a policy or statement. After several decades in journalism I've come to think there is too much emphasis on the "take" or meaning of the polls. 

        Some questions surpass public knowledge or understanding. The polls only compound false assumptions or  misrepresentation. Too many people react based on emotion and feeling instead of facts or critical reasoning. Too many people are in their own confirming information silos and do not have a complete or broad understanding.  

        A terrible use is to pose a simplistic question like "Should the US use military force to support Ukraine?" or "Should the US do more...." Yes public policy needs public acceptance, but asking an increasingly ill informed, even misinformed social media fed public is as useful as me asking the shelled denizens of the tidal pool, can I walk on water. 

        BTW there is a self portrait of sorts in the first frame.

        Nothing is a simple as some will try to make you think it is. Nothing is more difficult than watching innocents suffer, unless it is finding a way to end the violence.

        I hope a truce can be struck, and that combatants will be separated by a UN resolution. The negotiations that I hope will come will be a challenge. It will be difficult for Putin to accept anything less than some gain, and in my view that is too much.

        Modern history tells us tyrants and power mad men like Putin need to be cut down, earlier rather than later. But it has to be done properly. 

        We are in a brutal time. We can counter a bit by our humane support for Ukrainians, those who are left behind, and those who seek refuge. Everyone can do something. 

        Remember to unplug occasionally, breath deeply and de-stress.

        Peace!  

        See you down the trail.